I have a prayer for God’s church and her leaders as we approach this weekend where we will celebrate the Third Day that made all the difference between life or death for us.  I pray that God’s leaders will have wisdom to hear what God wants said.  I pray for all to pause to pray, reflect on the third day, and praise God from a full grateful heart for sending Jesus to save us.  I pray that leaders will lead from a heart of thanksgiving for what God has done in them!   I pray for leaders and volunteers to know God and live for God as glimpses of God for others to see as evidence of his love, mercy and grace. 

I pray that the busyness of preparing the worship room, the musicians, the presentations, the children’s areas, the student areas and even the parking lot does not become the religious priority.  I pray that the competitive promotions for the church’s market share of attenders are not the priority of thinking.  I pray that our hearts are centered on one thing—On the Third Day, Christ arose. 

If we think only of pleasing those who will come with the greatest music, best sermon ever or the beautifully prepared room, then we will just be a “gang of priests”, like Hosea tells about, manipulating people who need Jesus.  Only Jesus.  With every opportunity God gives, invite people to Jesus, His Son, who is perfect and became the perfect sacrifice for our sins.  Merely inviting people to church as the end all for their lives will be false advertising for they will be disappointed at all the imperfection they will see.  We are God’s church, a people of imperfections but perfectly forgiven.  So, we point to Jesus always.  It is Jesus who saves us—no one else and nothing less.  “Come on, let’s go back to God,” shout the worshipers. 

My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus’ blood, my righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
but wholly lean on Jesus’ name.

On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand:
all other ground is sinking sand;
all other ground is sinking sand.

Hosea 6, The Message

Gangs of Priests Assaulting Worshipers

^1-3 “Come on, let’s go back to God.
    He hurt us, but he’ll heal us.
He hit us hard,
    but he’ll put us right again.
In a couple of days we’ll feel better.
    By the third day he’ll have made us brand-new,
Alive and on our feet,
    fit to face him.
We’re ready to study God,
    eager for God-knowledge.
As sure as dawn breaks,
    so sure is his daily arrival.
He comes as rain comes,
    as spring rain refreshing the ground.”

* * *

^4-7 “What am I to do with you, Ephraim?
    What do I make of you, Judah?
Your declarations of love last no longer
    than morning mist and predawn dew.
That’s why I use prophets to shake you to attention,
    why my words cut you to the quick:
To wake you up to my judgment
    blazing like light.
I’m after love that lasts, not more religion.
    I want you to know God, not go to more prayer meetings.
You broke the covenant—just like Adam!
    You broke faith with me—ungrateful wretches!

^8-9 “Gilead has become Crime City—
    blood on the sidewalks, blood on the streets.
It used to be robbers who mugged pedestrians.
    Now it’s gangs of priests
Assaulting worshipers on their way to Shechem.
    Nothing is sacred to them.

¹⁰ “I saw a shocking thing in the country of Israel:
    Ephraim worshiping in a religious whorehouse,
    and Israel in the mud right there with him.

¹¹ “You’re as bad as the worst of them, Judah.
    You’ve been sowing wild oats. Now it’s harvest time.”

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

Worship God.  Worship only God.  Love God back because He first loved us.

God wants us to be faithful to Him. It hurts him to see us wander away.

Don’t build your house on a career. Don’t build your house on a thrill. Don’t build your house on a talent. Don’t build your house on one solitary earthly relationship. Don’t pursue things that don’t last. Build your house on a solid rock foundation of the only thing that can last: Jesus, as Savior and Lord.

When darkness veils his lovely face,
I rest on his unchanging grace;
in every high and stormy gale,
my anchor holds within the veil.

His oath, his covenant, his blood,
support me in the whelming flood;
when all around my soul gives way,
he then is all my hope and stay.

When he shall come with trumpet sound,
O may I then in him be found:
dressed in his righteousness alone,
faultless to stand before the throne.

On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand:
all other ground is sinking sand;
all other ground is sinking sand...

Lord,

I am so grateful for the Third Day.  As you rose from death to life, you became our Hope.  You are our Hope and Assurance of eternal life, forever unconditional love, unending mercies that are new and fresh each morning, along with your beautiful gift of grace.  Indeed, there is NO ONE like you!  I love you back with all that is in me.  I worship you today in the quiet of this first hour of the day.  Thank you for your daily manna of nourishment from your word.  Thank you for dying for my sins, then rising from death to life on that Third Day.  How deep is your love for us, it goes beyond our thinking!  Life is all about you because you are Life!

In Jesus Name, Amen